Winner of the 2020 Robert E. Park Award for Best Book from the Community and Urban Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

“Sites Unseen is perhaps the most important contribution made in this century to our understanding of the distribution of environmental hazards in U.S. urban areas. Scott Frickel and James R. Elliott, two masterful sociologists, present their innovative and insightful research in this accessible but deeply scholarly work about how the history of cities affects the well-being of contemporary urban residents. This is a seminal work that is likely to spawn a wide variety of new research as well as aid and encourage social and environmental activists.”

—RICHARD YORK, professor of sociology and director and professor of environmental studies, University of Oregon

“This is a work of exceptional quality and profundity, the result of painstaking and systematic investigation of the largely hidden yet massive and ‘relentless accumulation’ of industrial hazards that exists throughout urban America. Scott Frickel and James R. Elliott present a twenty-first century theory and method of human ecology that requires us to expand our sensory capacities, and they give us a bonus: an innovative and empowering DIY Guide for those who seek to apply these tools to their own cities and neighborhoods. Sites Unseen will change forever the way we think about cities. I fervently hope that it also changes the way we live in and (re)make them.”

—DAVID N. PELLOW, Dehlsen Chair and professor of environmental studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

“Sites Unseen is an innovative and important book. Scott Frickel and James R. Elliott document in laser-like fashion how the poor and people of color are disproportionately burdened by exposure to a heretofore largely invisible landscape of industrial-era environmental hazards in American cities. By adroitly exposing the hazards and demonstrating how our regulatory apparatus seems capable of only handling the most extreme risks, Frickel and Elliott’s creative use of public data, methods, and findings lay the foundation for renewed research interest in environmental sociology and geography.”

—JAMES H. JOHNSON JR., William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship and director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center, University of North Carolina Kenan-Flager Business School

From a dive bar in New Orleans to a leafy residential street in Minneapolis, many establishments and homes in cities across the nation share a troubling and largely invisible past: they were once sites of industrial manufacturers, such as plastics factories or machine shops, that likely left behind carcinogens and other hazardous industrial byproducts. In Sites Unseen, sociologists Scott Frickel and James R. Elliott uncover the hidden histories of these sites to show how they are regularly produced and reincorporated into urban landscapes with limited or no regulatory oversight. By revealing this legacy of our industrial past, Sites Unseen spotlights how city-making has become an ongoing process of social and environmental transformation and risk containment.

To demonstrate these dynamics, Frickel and Elliott investigate four very different cities—New Orleans, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and Portland, Oregon. Using original data assembled and mapped for thousands of former manufacturers’ locations dating back to the 1950s, they find that more than 90 percent of such sites have now been converted to urban amenities such as parks, homes, and storefronts with almost no environmental review. And because manufacturers tend to open plants on new, non-industrial lots rather than on lots previously occupied by other manufacturers, associated hazards continue to spread relatively unabated. As they do, residential turnover driven by gentrification and the rising costs of urban living further obscure these sites from residents and regulatory agencies alike.

Frickel and Elliott show that these hidden processes have serious consequences for city-dwellers. While minority and working class neighborhoods are still more likely to attract hazardous manufacturers, rapid turnover in cities means that whites and middle-income groups also face increased risk. Since government agencies prioritize managing polluted sites that are highly visible or politically expedient, many former manufacturing sites that now have other uses remain invisible. To address these oversights, the authors advocate creating new municipal databases that identify previously undocumented manufacturing sites as potential environmental hazards. They also suggest that legislation limiting urban sprawl might reduce the flow of hazardous materials beyond certain boundaries.

A wide-ranging synthesis of urban and environmental scholarship, Sites Unseen shows that creating sustainable cities requires deep engagement with industrial history as well as with the social and regulatory processes that continue to remake urban areas through time.

SCOTT FRICKEL is professor of sociology and environment and society at Brown University.

JAMES R. ELLIOTT is professor of sociology at Rice University.

Winner of the 2019 Otis Dudley Duncan Book Award from the Sociology of Population Section of the American Sociological Association

Winner of the 2018 Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award from the Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities of the American Sociological Association

Winner of the 2018 Robert E. Park Award for Best Book from the Community and Urban Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association

Honorable Mention for the 2018 Outstanding Contribution to Scholarship Book Award from the Race, Gender, and Class Section of the American Sociological Association

“In The Cycle of Segregation, Maria Krysan and Kyle Crowder offer a major breakthrough in understanding of the roots of residential segregation in U.S. society today. Their social-structural sorting perspective elegantly and convincingly explains how black and Hispanic segregation can persist even as minority incomes rise and discrimination and prejudice in housing markets decline. It is a remarkable achievement.”

—Douglas S. Massey, Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University

“I highly recommend this book. Maria Krysan and Kyle Crowder's social structural sorting perspective provides new theoretical lens for recognizing and understanding the self-reinforcing processes of residential segregation. Their original analysis of the drivers of segregation and thoughtful policy prescriptions for dismantling it make Cycle of Segregation a must-read.”

—William Julius Wilson, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University

“It is rare that a book written on a problem so fundamental to social life—segregation—is able to make a truly unique contribution and to set the stage for a new, more refined research agenda. Cycle of Segregation does so. Maria Krysan and Kyle Crowder have synthesized insights from a wide range of empirical studies, and put them together to develop a theory of how the structure of urban inequality constrains and shapes individuals’ residential choices, giving segregation its own self-perpetuating momentum. This book changed how I think about segregation, and it should be read by anyone who cares about America’s urban neighborhoods.”

—Patrick T. Sharkey, Professor and Chair of Sociology, New York University

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 outlawed housing discrimination by race and provided an important tool for dismantling legal segregation. But almost fifty years later, residential segregation remains virtually unchanged in many metropolitan areas, particularly where large groups of racial and ethnic minorities live. Why does segregation persist at such high rates and what makes it so difficult to combat? In Cycle of Segregation, sociologists Maria Krysan and Kyle Crowder examine how everyday social processes shape residential stratification. Past neighborhood experiences, social networks, and daily activities all affect the mobility patterns of different racial groups in ways that have cemented segregation as a self-perpetuating cycle in the twenty-first century.

Through original analyses of national-level surveys and in-depth interviews with residents of Chicago, Krysan and Crowder find that residential stratification is reinforced through the biases and blind spots that individuals exhibit in their searches for housing. People rely heavily on information from friends, family, and coworkers when choosing where to live. Because these social networks tend to be racially homogenous, people are likely to receive information primarily from members of their own racial group and move to neighborhoods that are also dominated by their group. Similarly, home-seekers who report wanting to stay close to family members can end up in segregated destinations because their relatives live in those neighborhoods. The authors suggest that even absent of family ties, people gravitate toward neighborhoods that are familiar to them through their past experiences, including where they have previously lived and where they work, shop, and spend time. Because historical segregation has shaped so many of these experiences, even these seemingly race-neutral decisions help reinforce the cycle of residential stratification. As a result, segregation has declined much more slowly than many socialscientists have expected.

To overcome this cycle, Krysan and Crowder advocate multilevel policy solutions that pair inclusionary zoning and affordable housing with education and public relations campaigns that emphasize neighborhood diversity and high-opportunity areas. They argue that together, such programs can expand the number of destinations available to low-income residents and help offset the negative images many people hold about certain neighborhoods or help introduce them to places they had never considered. Cycle of Segregation demonstrates why a nuanced understanding of everyday social processes is critical for interrupting entrenched patterns of residential segregation.

MARIA KRYSAN is professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

KYLE CROWDER is Blumstein-Jordon Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington.

From the Playground Extension Committee of the Russell Sage Foundation, this paper on landscape gardening for children’s recreation spaces was first presented at the second annual Playground Congress for the Playground Association of America in 1909.

CHARLES MULFORD ROBINSON was professor of civic design at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

A 1910 pamphlet on the essential characteristics of vacation schools open for the summer, based on reports of school authorities and voluntary organizations, including teacher salaries and descriptions of class activities.

CLARENCE ARTHUR PERRY, Department of Child Hygiene, Russell Sage Foundation

A review of the development of the community center as a distinct institution and government agency, ten years after such a proposal was made to reformers the 1911 First National Conference on Civic and Social Center Development. The article first appeared in 1921 in the New York Evening Post and reprinted in the September-October 1921 number of the Community Center.

CLARENCE ARTHUR PERRY, Department of Child Hygiene, Russell Sage Foundation

A 1910 report of the Fairview Garden School Association of Yonkers, N.Y., detailing the origin and growth of the school garden, including costs and plans for maintenance.

A. L. LIVERMORE was chairman of the Executive Committee of the Fairview Garden School Association.

From the Playground Extension Committee of the Russell Sage Foundation, this paper explores a variety of games for children in the winter months.

ARTHUR LELAND, Playground Extension Committee, Russell Sage Foundation

An ideal development for a playground on an irregular tract of land between five and six acres in extent, reprinted in 1909 from Hygiene and Physical Education.

LORNA H. LELAND, playground architect and organizer

A recreation survey of Ipswich, Massachusetts, based on direct observation of children’s outdoor play and interviews with the children. Its purpose was to determine what the schools of the Ipswich community might do to meet the recreation needs of the community.

HOWARD R. KNIGHT, Department of Recreation, Russell Sage Foundation

In this 1909 pamphlet, from the proceedings of the third annual Playground Congress, George E. Johnson argues that children in the modern era need facilitation and supervision of play.

GEORGE E. JOHNSON was director of the Pittsburgh Playground Association.